The Dreamer and the Dreamed
by Kuna Yashmaa
Summary: Very big spoilers for 4.04


McKay wondered how he could have two different memories of the same event. He was sure he saw the 'second one' fall through the Gate never to come back, and yet he remembered clearly two black-clad bodies embracing, merging, melting together to become one.

-o0o-

He woke to a soft nuzzling: tender kiss on the left corner of his mouth, somebody's whisper in his right ear. He opened his eyes, looked to the left, looked to the right, and jumped to the foot of the bed, clutching the blanket around him protectively.

"Which one of you is… you?"

Both Sheppards smiled at him lazily and exchanged a glance.

"Both of me is me," Sheppard on the left yawned and stretched with an obvious lack of modesty, then he patted the bed next to his thigh. "Come here…"

"Oh, no. No, no, no! One of you is… you-you, and the other one is an alien entity." McKay tried to shake his finger, but had to grab the falling off blanket again. "A _homicidal_ alien entity, for that matter," he added in a whisper.

"Entity-shmentity," Sheppard on the right waved his hand dismissively. "There was never any entity."

"Yes, there was," Sheppard on the left contradicted. "But I don't understand what all that fuss was about."

McKay had to make a concerted effort not to scream at him. "You buried Dex _alive_."

"Who saw him die? I, said the Fly… Actually, that was me," Sheppard on the right raised two fingers. He had the courtesy to look slightly embarrassed, right until Rodney realized he was faking it. Then Sheppard smiled and pointed at his twin with the thumb. "But it was him who watched Teyla die."

"Kate?" McKay whispered.

"We both were there. We don't like when people poke their noses where they don't belong," Sheppard on the left shrugged.

"We don't like it _at all_," Sheppard on the right nodded his agreement.

Rodney opened his mouth to ask another question, but snapped it shut.

"Oh, not you, silly," Sheppard on the right rolled his eyes. "We love you."

"We love you," the other one echoed. "Come to us."

Rodney kept clutching his blanket. "No way."

"Or I will call Moby Dick." It sounded more like 'Moby De-e-ek', and Sheppard on the right moved his eyebrows up and down.

"You know, this is not fair…"

"Moby De-e-ek, oh, Moby De-e-ek," Sheppard on the right crooned, making a show of looking over the edge of the bed.

"Better if you move here," Sheppard on the left whispered loudly, patting the bed again. "You're too close to the edge."

"Moby Dick is a thirty-ton whale, he wouldn't _fit_ under the bed," McKay tried to keep uncertainty from his voice, but felt it didn't quite work.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," Sheppard on the left gave him that lazy smile of his.

Rodney opened his mouth to retort, then shut it again: the bed under him rocked ever so slightly. It wasn't his room anymore – they were floating in a vast sea of cold fog, gray wisps flowing into hazy shapes all around them. Something pulled on his blanket, he looked around and saw the tangled bed covers rapidly getting wet, trailing behind on the surface of lead-colored water. Something lurked just below that surface, something huge, something…

McKay screamed and ran on his hands and knees from the unknown horror to the known one, and felt two hot bodies embracing him, their whispers rustling in both his ears, "We'll protect you," and "We love you…"

-o0o-

"Are we there yet?"

McKay tried to wipe his forehead through the plastic face shield of the protection suit. "For the hundredth time, no."

Sheppard, covered in a cobweb of multicolored wires, moaned, "It's my _day off_. I should be watching the game and drinking beer. Can I at least have a beer?"

"No." McKay hit couple of keys with his gloved fingers and scowled at the screen of his laptop. "Alcohol will throw off all your readings, and since the baseline alone takes about two hours, the answer is _no_. And if you think that spending six hours in this… _spacesuit_ is my idea of a day off–"

"Why should I sacrifice _my_ day off to _your_ unhealthy psyche? I can't control what's going on in your dreams."

"_My_ unhealthy psyche?"

"Would you care to elaborate, Dr. Freud, what I, _in two copies_, was doing in your bed?" Sheppard's eyes gleamed nastily. "By the way, was I _naked_?"

"As matter of fact you were. But the last time I saw you _in two copies_ you put me through a near death experience. So if you want to spend the rest of _your_ day off in five point restraints, keep talking," McKay stated coldly and turned to watch the monitors.

"Listen… um… 'm sorry…" Out of the corner of his eye McKay saw Sheppard's face assumed an expression of cute pouting.

"For what?"

"For hiding Moby Dick under your bed?"

"A-ha!" McKay turned on the spot pointing an accusing finger. "You admit it!"

Sheppard rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation.

"Rodney, this is crazy." Zelenka looked up from the screen of his laptop. "He is clean. We checked all the frequencies _twice_."

"And we'll check them again. And again, until we catch it."

Radek snapped the laptop shut, got up and walked to stand by Sheppard's gurney. "I know you don't want to hear it, Rodney, but _there's nothing in this body,_" the gloved finger pointed at Sheppard's chest emphatically, "_that wasn't there from the start._"


End file.
